To get a taste of what the participants believe about UFOs,
you should get this paper.

But, for now, here is what Carl Sagan presented as his view,
in part, about flying saucers:

The interest in unidentified flying objects derives,
perhaps, not so much from scientific curiosity as from unfulfilled religious
needs. Flying saucers serve, for some, to replace the gods that science has
deposed. With their distant and exotic worlds and their pseudoscientific
overlay, the contact accounts are acceptable to many people who reject the
older religious frameworks.

But precisely because people desire so intensely that
unidentified flying objects be of benign, intelligent, and extraterrestrial
origin, honesty requires that, in evaluating the observations, we accept only
the most rigorous logic and the most convincing evidence. At the present time,
there is no evidence that unambiguously connects the various flying saucer
sightings and contact tales with extraterrestrial intelligence.

And the always self-regarded insert of CIA operative and UFO
debunker Donald Menzel (who sent this to the Chairman of the Symposium):

Received your letter of July and will contribute paper as
you suggest. Am amazed, however, that you could plan so unbalanced a symposium,
weighted by persons known to favor Government support of a continuing,
expensive, and pointless investigation of UFOs without inviting me, the leading
exponent of opposing views and author of two major books on the subject.

Donald H. Menzel, Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory

I like to think that most of our visitors here are
well-versed or well-read in the varied and extensive UFO literature, some of it
outside their areas of interest, too.

Having to explain the context of postings by me and others
is often taxing and irksome.

Dialoguing with those who have a bounty of UFO materials
under their belts might prove productive.

That would eliminate the often ill-conceived retorts of some
skeptics and believers also, who argue from a death of knowledge, and they
know, I would hope, who they are.

"I do not think the evidence is at all persuasive, that UFO's are of intelligent extraterrestrial origin, nor do I think the evidence is convincing that no UFO's are of intelligent extraterrestrial origin." -Carl Sagan